fun stuff

Capturing Sunflowers

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beautiful sunflowers

Every summer I grow sunflowers; started them years ago from seed, and now every year they reseed and pop up all over the backyard. Sometimes the seed falls over the fence, and there are baby sunflowers growing along the alleyway.  Springtime brings the Big Transplant where I gather all the frail little plants and congregate them into one area.  I just can’t bring myself to throw any of them away or let them be trampled by alley traffic.  On the day of the Big Transplant the little sunflower seedlings always fall over, as if touching their toes, looking forlorn and heartbroken.

pathway to the Sunflower House

It doesn’t take too long for them to perk up and start growing stronger; some growing ten feet tall and others barely reaching the three-foot mark.  And every summer I take pictures of them: my sunflower children, my Sunflower House, my sunflower sanctuary.

My photography skills are by no means something to brag about, but every now and then, after furiously clicking away on my camera, I get a decent shot, a salvageable photo.  The photo of the butterfly on the sunflower at the top of the page is one of mine.

door into the Sunflower House

Making the Sunflower House is almost a tradition now, starting back ten years ago or more, when Maddy (my gorgeous teenage niece) was only four or five.  It stood empty many years until the greats and the grands started coming along.  Now I have children hiding again among the tall, leafy plants; dragging their tiny children chairs inside, checking the birds’ houses to see if anybird’s home, coming out all itchy and needing washed off with the water hose.

roof of the Sunflower House

Maddy liked to hide in it; Jack and Sam did, too, as did the kids from church.  Kate was into decorating the  House this past summer, hanging little chimes from the leaves (her doorbell) , setting tables around (that was a tight squeeze; it’s small), and hiding her treasures from the “farm” (a story for later).

They just make me smile: sunflowers and children.

Waiting-on-Summer Hor D’oeuvre

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Camel Rock

It’s cold here in Southern Illinois, and my weather taste buds are all set for summer.  Garden of the Gods sits in the Shawnee National Forest, a perfect place for summer picnics, camping, hiking, and falling off steep cliffs and rock animals.  Parents pack up the kiddies and the hot dogs and then hold their breath until those parents get those kiddies back on to more secure footing; a place where hippies (yes, there still are some) come to fill the air with a certain sweet tobacco aroma and bask in nature; a spot to enjoy the beauty and quiet of God’s world.

As you can see from the photo, the glaciers all those millions of years ago made some rather interesting sculptures.  This one is called Camel Rock, but perhaps it should have been named Bull Rock because some young buck is always getting thrown from that camel’s back into the thick brush below.  Every summer some drunken fool (or not so drunken — just a fool) thinks he (don’t recall any females) can jump from the surrounding rocks to the camel’s head.  And every summer the police scanners around the rural countryside cackle with the call for ambulances and rescue teams.

My friends and I used to come to this garden, this Garden of the Gods, and make camp for the weekend.  We had hair down to our butts (even the guys) and threw tents up or just laid a blanket on the ground or in the back of a pickup truck.  We cooked food over a fire (best kind there is at that age) and drank cheap wine.  It seems as though it wasn’t so long ago my feet thought they could fly, too.

Bob’s Cat

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My neighbor, Bob, is a good man.  I know this because he is good to animals… and people.  We work together on the days that I am in this county, and so I have seen him in action with people.  Some days we have a chance to chat, and we chat about our pets.  He has a cat, and I have a cat.

Today, I am taking down the dog house/ cat house that I bought because Bob is so good to his cat, and I am not so good to my cat.  I am also going to take back the heated animal pad that I also bought in my guilt-laden shopping trip to Rural King.  The guilt-laden pet owner shopping trip.  Because Bob is just so darned good to his cat.

His cat has a heated pad in the garage where he puts her at night out of the winter cold.  His cat gets special little treats to eat.  Why, I bet he even gives the neighbor cats a special little treat if they happen to be hanging around at the right time.

And believe you me, those neighbor cats know when to hang around at the right time.  It amazes me how a person can start off with one measly little cat… and have ten lurking around the perimeter of the homey cat’s domain, spying the hiding places in the yard to run to when homey cat’s owner is chasing them, ranting and raving like a lunatic; searching out the best places to have those illegitimate kittens that belong to God alone knows how many different Toms.  Why, my sister’s cat… but wait a minute.  We’re talking about Bob’s cat.

I think it’s spoiled.

Pinochle

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Pinochle.  I love pinochle.  For those of you who aren’t card players, it is a card game.  No need to go into the boring details of how to play nor the rules and variations of play.  This is about the deliciousness of playing pinochle with three of my best friends, The Funky Four, and our voracious appetite for getting together to play a game that should by now be dull.

We play for money; no fools here.  We know that any card game worth playing should be played for money.  Last week I won seven cents; however, I lost 70 cents.  Good thing I’m not a Vegas gal.  But I made a fortune in hysterical laughter and a downright good time.  We four are amazed at the very idea that we can get together time after time after time, several years now, and laugh our butts off all night long… over a pinochle game.  We are loathe to end the games although we usually do after the third, tie-breaking game; that is, if one pair of partners doesn’t skunk the other pair.  Even then we play three games; sometimes more; until it gets to be the next day and we decide we need to get home.  At least two of us need to get home; the other two get to stay put; their house being the “meet-in-the-middle” house.

There is nothing sacred about partners.  Each time we play, Sandy (aka Carmella Celeste) (a whole other blog) makes out the numbers so we can draw for partners.  Depending on her mood, we might get holiday-related drawings (eggs for Easter) to go with the numbers, or if she’s in a randy mood, she may draw… well, you can imagine.  And each time we play, no matter who are partners, we are “gonna kick your ass.”  I love kicking Sandy’s ass just a week after she and I valiantly tried to kick Babe and Kay’s.

Yep, I love kicking ass.  And I love pinochle.

Terry

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Terry should write a book.  Really.  She is so funny, so witty, so intelligent, so colorful, so earthy, so… storyable.  Her friends and she have been throwing around the idea, coming up with some hilarious scenarios –  that are real incidents I might add.  You see, they’ve done a lot of dating between the three of them, imbibed too much a few too many times, and know men.  I will not go into how well they “know” men.  They just know them.  Had some rather interesting encounters, some interesting marriages (or not), and some interesting outcomes to both aforementioned interestings.  So a book written by these gals would become a movie.  A movie everybody would want to see.

I want to see it and I haven’t even read the unwritten book yet!  Just listening to her tell about the combined experiences makes me laugh to my toes, the kind of laughing that makes your face get wrinkles as you age, those wrinkles that were worth it.  She has been my good forever friend.  The one that goes to the doctor with you when you’re nine months pregnant and she’s seven months pregnant and both of you won’t eat until after the weigh-in.  Then look out!  I’m talking baby-belly appetite.  The big and pregnant friends that go camping with what we called husbands at the time, laboring with protruding bellies (and one little four-year-old daughter) to put up a tent, and splashing mud all over those same big bellies as we drove the doorless jeep into town.  We had nice tits though.  A couple of studs were watching us in the lake (we were in up to those nice tits) (bellies in the water) until we decided to go back to shore.  Boy, did we let them down!  Probably literally.

My bosom buddy.  It’s nice to feel bosomy sometimes.